Tuesday, July 02, 2019

How the Rolling Stones Craft the Perfect Setlist

The Rolling Stones are on tour again. They played Saturday night north of Toronto to generally favourable reviews, and no, I didn't go.

I've always wondered how the Stones create their setlists. If you look at songs played on a tour, they seem to have a good balance between the hits that they pretty much have to play (Jumpin' Jack Flash, Honky Tonk Women, Satisfaction), and older deep cuts and blues standards.

Rolling Stone interviewed the band members, who explained the process. It seems that Mick Jagger is the one who gets the final word, which makes sense, because he's the one up front singing on most songs.
The Rolling Stones have a system for planning what songs they’re going to play at every show. On concert days, the band usually soundchecks in the afternoon. Then Mick Jagger gets to work with keyboardist Chuck Leavell on making the set list. They take a few things into account: They look at what songs they played the last time they were in the area to make sure they don’t repeat themselves, and Jagger thinks about his voice and what he’s comfortable singing. Sometimes, the band makes song suggestions: “He’ll be quite honest,” says guitarist Ronnie Wood. “He’ll say, ‘Actually, no, that won’t work here,’ or ‘We played it here too many times.’ Or he may just go, ‘Yeah, we’ll give it a run,’ so you never quite know what to expect, but you always get a reason why we won’t perform something.”

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